TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
February 18, 2025
Thor's Helmet versus the Seagull
Seen as a seagull and a duck, these nebulae are not the only cosmic clouds to evoke images of flight. But both are winging their way across this broad celestial landscape, spanning almost 7 degrees across planet Earth's night sky toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major). The expansive Seagull (top center) is itself composed of two major cataloged emission nebulas. Brighter NGC 2327 forms the head with the more diffuse IC 2177 as the wings and body. Impressively, the Seagull's wingspan would correspond to about 250 light-years at the nebula's estimated distance of 3,800 light-years. At the lower right, the Duck appears much more compact and would span only about 50 light-years given its 15,000 light-year distance estimate. Blown by energetic winds from an extremely massive, hot star near its center, the Duck nebula is cataloged as NGC 2359. Of course, the Duck's thick body and winged appendages also lend it the slightly more dramatic popular moniker, Thor's Helmet.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
NOAA, NASA brace for major job cuts
February 18, 2025
The layoffs of thousands of government workers are likely to expand — possibly as soon as Tuesday — to two key climate science and extreme weather agencies: NOAA and NASA.
Why it matters: These agencies keep tabs on the planet's weather and climate and are considered to be in the top tier of such government departments worldwide.
Zoom in: In keeping with the size of cuts to other government departments, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is thought to be in line for as much as a 10% reduction in staff, which would amount to about 1,000 workers.
NOAA is a small organization, with only about 12,000 employees spread across functions from climate and weather forecasting to oceans research and fisheries regulation.
Deep cuts could imperil some of its work, particularly that of the National Weather Service, which has been short-staffed in recent years.
The intrigue: It's possible that NWS would receive a public safety exemption to keep their meteorologists from being on the chopping block, but that was unclear over the weekend.
The stated mission of the Weather Service includes "the protection of life and property," but such exemptions were being granted sparingly agency by agency.
Zoom out: Billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been reviewing contracts at NASA and accessing IT systems at NOAA.
These are two agencies where Musk has conflicts of interest given the activities of his company SpaceX.
The firm is a major NASA contractor, and NOAA and NASA are studying the effects of frequent rocket launches as well as reentry of used satellites into Earth's upper atmosphere.
Driving the news: Layoffs across the government are already reaching other energy and environmental agencies.
The cuts include DOE offices expanded or launched under the 2021 infrastructure law and 2022 IRA, per Axios sources and published reports on Friday.
DOE is axing roughly 50 workers in DOE's loan programs office, a major source of finance for commercializing low-carbon tech projects that got more muscular under the IRA.
Other cuts hit the Grid Deployment Office, according to a former DOE official who requested anonymity to share details that have not been made public.
DOE also laid off substantial numbers of staff at the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains and the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the former official said.
Catch up quick: Agencies are losing many probationary workers — people often a year or less into the job, though time periods vary.
EPA terminated 388 probationary workers, the agency said Friday, citing a "thorough review of agency functions in accordance with President Trump's executive orders."
Friction point: Capitol Hill Democrats are demanding info on the layoffs as they criticize the cuts but lack power to force disclosures.
"Until such time as we are briefed on these developments, we will not know the damage to our country and the world as a result of these haphazard and thoughtless firings," Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, both Democrats, said in a statement about DOE.
The bottom line: DOE hasn't provided comment or tallies, so this all remains vague.
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/18/federal-workers-layoffs-noaa-nasa
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/by-the-end-of-today-nasas-workforce-will-be-about-10-percent-smaller/
Why does the world (and NASA) need digital twins?
February 18, 2025
From its origin during NASA’s Apollo missions, digital twins today drive everything from personalized medicine to autonomous operations in space by using data to simulate and forecast future behaviors based on what we already know.
Digital twins—real-time virtual replicas of physical objects, systems, and processes—are surging to the forefront everywhere, from the doctor’s office and the manufacturing floor to the innards of cars, aircraft and rocket engines.
As the world grows in complexity, digital twins can help us make better-informed decisions, reduce risk, and deliver life-saving benefits to humanity, especially when combined with the power of scientific computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and sensor technology.
NASA first championed the concept of digital twins after the Apollo 13 accident.
After the oxygen tank explosion and subsequent damage to the spacecraft, the agency used simulators and vehicle modeling not only to evaluate the cause of the anomaly but also to develop and test real-time solutions for the astronauts' survival.
Decades after Apollo 13, John Vickers, principal technologist and associate director of the Materials and Processes Laboratory at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, was credited with coining the term “digital twins,” in 2010.
Instruments and spacecraft systems continue to grow in complexity.
The digital twin’s goal is not only to ensure these technologies operate as expected and for longer durations but also to enable real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance and adaptive decision-making – such capabilities are critical as we prepare to return to the Moon.
It can play a critical role in forecasting the probabilities of mission success.
Several digital twins helped successfully test and monitor the James Webb Space Telescope.
The world’s most advanced space telescope, which stands four stories high and the length of a tennis court, could not fit in NASA’s thermal vacuum chamber, prompting the Agency to build a digital twin.
One digital twin modeled the telescope “core” to test its core temperature since a spike in temperature could make the telescope “blind” and unable to look for the universe’s most distant galaxies.
Next, a 3D video-based digital twin was developed to enable NASA scientists and partners to follow in real time the unfurling of the giant telescope’s massive sunshield, a complicated maneuver that had 344 different ways to fail.
These virtual models are also transforming analytics on Earth, providing an integrated picture of Earth systems, past and present, as well as how they will evolve in the future.
Using a replica of Earth, NASA can detect and monitor floods, the planet’s oceans for carbon, wildfires and air quality, to name a few examples.
NASA’s Wildfire Digital Twin uses AI and machine learning to forecast potential burn paths, merging data from sensors to produce precise global models.
Digital twins hold great promise to revolutionize personalized medicine, from preventing to treating diseases.
On Earth, digital twins are already used to suggest real-time adjustments to insulin delivery for patients with Type 1 diabetes and show great potential in diagnosing and treating cardiac conditions.
In space, astronaut digital twins could play a pivotal role in predicting and mitigating health issues during missions.
By integrating genomic profiles, age, gender, previous flight data and medical history, these tools could enable real-time health monitoring and personalized interventions, paving the way for safer deep space exploration.
How this benefits space exploration:
Digital twins could provide the path forward for humanity to realize its deep-space ambitions.
From modeling and simulation to real-time monitoring, digital twins show promise to enhance the safety and reliability of space missions in the era of AI and autonomous operations.
How this benefits humanity:
Digital twins are transforming life on Earth, making it easier to anticipate and tackle complex problems. We now enjoy a better picture of Earth, including predicting natural disasters.
The technology shows great promise in improving how we diagnose, treat and monitor conditions like heart disease and diabetes, so people live longer, healthier lives.
https://science.nasa.gov/biological-physical/why-does-the-world-and-nasa-need-digital-twins/
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210023699/downloads/ASME%20Digital%20Twin%20Summit%20Keynote_final.pdf
Cookies, Cream, and Crumbling Cores
Feb 17, 2025
Perseverance’s drives over the last few weeks have doubled back several times. Why such an unconventional route?
Team scientists have been delighted to find new kinds of rocks that could be the oldest ever found on Mars and are eager to collect samples.
Perseverance embarked on the Crater Rim Campaign in search of ancient uplifted rock, to better understand the geologic processes occurring early in Mars’ history, and search for ancient habitable environments.
Recent discoveries have not disappointed: so far in this portion of the rim, every outcrop that the rover has taken a close look at using the science instruments on its robotic arm has ended up being something new.
As explained in the previous update, after acquiring the “Silver Mountain” core, which is rich in the mineral pyroxene, Perseverance approached a nearby rock that had signatures of the mineral serpentine, fittingly nicknamed “Serpentine Lake.”
Following this, the rover used its abrasion tool to clean the rock of dust and coatings for detailed scientific interrogation, and the team was wowed by the intriguing rock texture, which resembles “cookies & cream” dessert (see photo above), and the very high abundance of minerals like serpentine, which form in the presence of water.
After finishing that investigation, the operations team decided to have Perseverance head back along its path once more to the site of its first abrasion in this part of the rim, named “Cat Arm Reservoir,” to acquire a sample.
Results from that earlier analysis showed a rock texture with coarse pyroxene and feldspar crystals consistent with an igneous origin. However, the sample tube turned up empty.
What happened? Perseverance has encountered this problem before: flashback to our first ever coring attempt.
It’s not a common occurrence, but sometimes the rocks Perseverance tries to sample are so weak that upon coring they essentially disintegrate into a powder instead of remaining in the tube.
The rover drove to a nearby spot and tried again, but when a second attempt to core this rock did not retain any sample, the team decided to move on.
This week, Perseverance will return once again to the site of the Serpentine Lake abrasion patch to acquire a core of this fascinating rock, which records intense alteration by water.
The team hopes that it will prove strong enough to acquire a core, and if successful, Perseverance may perform more scans on the abrasion patch.
Afterward, the plan is to drive downhill to an area called “Broom Point,” home to a spectacular sequence of layered rock, where I’m sure more surprises and exciting scientific discoveries await.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/cookies-cream-and-crumbling-cores/
Nasa upgrades chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in disaster event
Tuesday 18 February 2025 12:37 GMT
Nasa has officially upgraded the likelihood of Earth being hit by asteroid 2024 YR4.
Nasa’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, now lists the chance of a collision in 2032 at 2.6 per cent, or roughly 1-in-38.
It has gone through a number of upgrades: the most recent estimate had put it at 2.3 per cent. At the end of January, it had been just 1 per cent.
Those changes are the result of more detailed observations, which have allowed scientists to considerably constrain the possible trajectory of the asteroid.
While it is still almost certain that the asteroid won’t hit, that work has allowed scientists to produce a possible impact risk corridor – which shows that more than 100 million people live in places that could potentially be hit by 2024 YR4.
Nasa’s CNEOS still ranks the asteroid as a 3 on the Torino Scale, which rates the possible danger posed by an impact.
The scale goes up to 8, but 2024 YR4 is limited because its relatively small size means that it would hit the Earth with less energy.
Scientists have estimated the asteroid as being probably 40-90 meters in size.
That estimate is based on the brightness – and so could vary considerably based on how shiny the surface of the rock is, which astronomers are attempting to work out with more detailed observations.
The asteroid is currently flying away from Earth, and is expected to disappear from view around April.
That means that further observations are being conducted in a hurry to ensure that scientists know as much about it as possible, since it will not be possible to study it again until 2028 – at which point it could be too late.
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/asteroid-2024-yr4-nasa-earth-chances-b2700006.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14408303/NASA-increases-chance-asteroid-hitting.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14406797/neil-degrasse-tyson-warning-asteroid-earth-nasa.html
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/2024-yr4/
Inside the NASA-funded experiment that went tragically wrong after dolphin fell in love with his trainer
Updated: 09:40 EST, 18 February 2025
Love knows no age - and apparently for one woman, no species.
Most people can recall a questionable relationship from their 20s, but for Margaret Howe Lovatt, she had to navigate a dolphin named Peter falling in love with her.
Lovatt's love story began in the mid-1960s, when the then 23-year-old volunteered for a NASA-funded project to try and communicate with the mammals at the Dolphin Point laboratory on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas.
'I was curious,' Lovatt, nee Howe, told The Guardian in an interview from 2014, describing the center.
Lovatt recalled driving to the large white building where the laboratory was and meeting director of the lab Gregory Bateson, who introduced her to the animals and invited her to observe them.
Despite not having scientific training, Lovatt proved to have some astute observations about the dolphins, with Bateson inviting her to come back whenever she wanted.
'There were three dolphins,' Lovatt recalled. 'Peter, Pamela and Sissy. Sissy was the biggest. Pushy, loud, she sort of ran the show.
Pamela was very shy and fearful. And Peter was a young guy. He was sexually coming of age and a bit naughty.'
The lab was founded by neuroscientist Dr. John Lilly, who had published a quasi-sci-fi book in 1961 which proposed the theory that dolphins wanted to communicate with humans.
He designed the lab with the intentions to allow humans and dolphins to live in closer proximity.
Lovatt soon became consumed with the project, spending more and more time in the lab with the aquatic mammals.
Lilly had hoped to communicate with the creatures, and encourage them to make human-like sounds through their blow holes through daily lessons.
However, she felt like she wasn't making enough progress, deciding instead to focus on Peter alone, increasing the time spent one-on-one training him.
Still not satisfied, and feeling she was spending all her time with Peter at the facility anyway, Lovatt moved into the lab in 1965.
She and Dr. Lilly set up an indoor aquarium at Dolphin Point where she and Peter could live together, so she could work on teaching him English 24/7.
Peter and Lovatt co-existed in the lab six days of the week, and on the seventh day, the dolphin would go back to the enclosure with Pamela and Sissy.
The experiment lasted for three months, with Lovatt keeping detailed notes. In her recollections of the experiment, Lovatt described the dolphin being 'very, very interested' in her anatomy.
'If I was sitting here and my legs were in the water, he would come up and look at the back of my knee for a long time. He wanted to know how that thing worked and I was so charmed by it,' she recalled.
Lovatt had also started noticing the Peter, who was a sexually maturing adolescent dolphin, was becoming aroused frequently during their sessions.
She also noted that it was very difficult to try and teach a dolphin to talk when he is aroused.
Lovatt found that Peter 'would rub himself' on her knee, foot or hand - adding that she would allow him to do so.
'I wasn't uncomfortable — as long as it wasn't too rough,' she said assuredly.
'It was just easier to incorporate that and let it happen, it was very precious and very gentle, Peter was right there, he knew that I was right there,' she added.
Peter was being transported to the enclosure with the other dolphins to relieve his sexual urges at first, which was reportedly logistically quite difficult.
The loss of time and difficult of moving Peter led Lovatt to eventually begin relieving Peter of his urges herself.
'It would just become part of what was going on, like an itch, just get rid of that scratch and we would be done and move on,' she explained.
While Lovatt said nothing was sexual on her part, the story of her sexual encounters with Peter ended up overshadowing the experiment, amplified by an article in Hustler in the late 1970s.
The experiment came to an end in 1966, when Lilly, who had become increasingly interested in LSD and it's effects, started to dose himself and the dolphins, leading to the end of the lab's funding.
Sadly, Peter never recovered from Lovatt leaving the center, with Lilly calling Lovatt a few weeks after her departure to report that Peter died, suggesting he had killed himself by opening his blowhole underwater.
Locatt remained on St Thomas and ended up marrying the photographer that worked on the project. They share four daughters and converted the abandoned Dolphin Point laboratory into a home for their family.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14406783/nasa-funded-experiment-wrong-dolphin-fell-love-trainer.html
2024 Annual Highlights of Results from the International Space Station Science
Feb 18, 2025
The 2024 Annual Highlights of Results from the International Space Station is now available.
This new edition contains updated bibliometric analyses, a list of all the publications documented in fiscal year 2024, and synopses of the most recent and recognized scientific findings from investigations conducted on the space station.
These investigations are sponsored by NASA and all international partners – CSA (Canadian Space Agency), ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and the State Space Corporation Roscosmos (Roscosmos) – for the advancement of science, technology, and education.
Between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, more than 350 publications were reported.
With approximately 40% of the research produced in collaboration between more than two countries and almost 80% of the high-impact studies published in the past seven years, station has continued to generate compelling and influential science above national and global standards since 2010.
The results achieved from station research provide insights that advance the commercialization of space and benefit humankind.
Some of the findings presented in this edition include:
Improved machine learning algorithms to detect space debris (Italian Space Agency, Roscosmos, ESA)
Visuospatial processing before and after spaceflight (CSA)
Metabolic changes during fasting intervals in astronauts (ESA)
Vapor bubble production for the improvement of thermal systems (NASA)
Immobilization of particles for the development of optical materials (JAXA)
Maintained function of cardiac 3D stem cells after weeks of exposure to space (NASA)
https://www.nasa.gov/general/2024-annual-highlights-of-results-from-the-international-space-station-science/
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ahr-2024-citations.pdf?emrc=b05205
Ed Dwight sculpted a historic path to space
February 18, 2025
In 1961, Ed Dwight was a decorated Air Force pilot with a dream of traveling into space.
He was nominated as a candidate for NASA’s early astronaut corps in 1961, just as NASA’s Project Mercury crewed flights were beginning.
Much of the Mercury technology was crafted by McDonnell Corp., in St. Louis, and astronauts were carried into space on six flights between 1961 and ’63.
While qualified, NASA did not select Dwight for the astronaut class of 1963. The agency did not choose a Black astronaut until 1978, and a Black Astronaut would not venture into space until Guion Bluford made history in 1983.
Dwight, if chosen, would have been in the 1963 astronaut class that included Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins.
On July 16, 1969, as Apollo 11 roared into space, Dwight could only look at the moon and wonder “what if?”
Apollo 11 astronauts Niel Armstrong and Collins were he first men to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969. Collins orbited the moon in the command module during the historic trip.
Dwight, an aeronautical engineer, Air Force captain and test pilot told BBC in England in 2019 that he received a letter from the Pentagon, authorized by President John F Kennedy, gauging his interest in becoming the first Black astronaut.
He thought it was a joke but later accepted the offer. Dwight would later call it “a political move.”
“The president went to NASA and said, ‘Would you train this guy?’ NASA says, ‘No, because you’ll destroy our program, you’ll destroy our tax base, and we’ll never get another dime from the public if you put a Black in this program right now.”
“The reputation of the first seven astronauts was that these guys were superheroes,” he said, referring to the famous Mercury Seven selected in 1958 and featured in the movie “The Right Stuff.”
“If you would’ve placed a Black or a woman in the middle of this mix too soon these guys would be ordinary people again in the eyes of the world, especially the tax-paying public. So, the president had to invent another space program – a military space program.”
Whether Dwight would have reached space through Kennedy’s military space program remains unknown. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, one month after Dwight ended astronaut training.
“The day the president got killed, my life changed,” said Dwight. “22 November 1963 was literally the end of our project.”
A Kansas City, Kansas native, Dwight graduated from Kansas City Junior College with an engineering degree in 1953. He rose to the rank of captain in the Air Force before retiring.
He joined IBM and started a construction company before earning a master’s degree in sculpture in the late 1970s.
Just as with his military career and pursuit of being an astronaut, Dwight excelled as an artist. His works, which included sculptures of Black historical figures of Frederick Douglass, Denmark Vesey and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were nationally acclaimed.
His works are on display at the Quincy Jones Sculpture Park in Chicago, the Texas African American History Memorial in Austin, Texas, and the Tower of Freedom International Memorial to the Underground Railroad in Windsor, Ontario, Canada
In 2005, Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., commissioned Dwight to create the Soldiers’ Memorial Plaza, which was completed by 2007.
The 18-foot tall sculpture captures the transformation of soldiers from the 62nd and 65th regiments into students, the first at Lincoln.
While chances of his traveling to space seemed to face astronomical odds, his dream came true more than 60 years after his NASA racial snub.
On May 19, 2024, traveling in a Blue Origin spacecraft, Dwight finally realized his dream of space travel. He and five other passengers skimmed into space on a roughly 10-minute flight, which included moments of weightlessness.
“It was a life-changing experience,” he said, moments after leaving the capsule.
“I thought I really didn’t need this in my life. But now, I need it in my life. I am ecstatic.
“Every time I started a project; I’ve got it finished. And here this thing came along, and it was a great big mysterious question mark sitting there. And so, the tendency for human beings in a situation like that is to blow it off and say you don’t need it.”
Dwight also said that every member of Congress should be required to travel to space and view the earth from that viewpoint. Age should not be a factor, Dwight proved it.
While he was not allowed to make history in the 1960s, Dwight accomplished something historic during his flight.
At 90, Dwight became the oldest person to ever travel to space. When he took his flight, he was two months older than actor 90-year-old William Shatner when he traveled on Blue Origin.
https://www.stlamerican.com/black-history/ed-dwight-sculpted-a-historic-path-to-space/
Scientists try to expel space pioneer Elon Musk from the Royal Society after accusing him of 'disreputable' behaviour
Updated: 06:49 EST, 18 February 2025
Elon Musk could become the first member of Britain's top science club to be expelled in over 150 years after furious scientists initiated a crisis meeting over his 'disreputable' behaviour.
The world's richest man has been a Fellow of the Royal Society Scientific Institution since 2018 when he was awarded the honour in recognition for his work at ventures such as Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company.
However, the Royal Society is now set to meet next month to discuss the possibility of revoking Musk's membership after more than 2,700 scientists signed an open letter accusing the X owner of breaching the society's code of conduct.
The letter, penned by biologist Stephen Curry, cited Musk's apparent shift from scientific pursuits towards right-wing politics both in the US and abroad as the principal concern of other members.
Referencing Musk's perpetuation of conspiracy theories online, his trolling of Dr Anthony Fauci and his labelling of Labour MP Jess Phillips as a 'rape genocide apologist', Curry argued the South African billionaire had clearly breached the Royal Society's code of conduct.
Other issues of contention included Musk's involvement with the Donald Trump administration's new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its alleged impact on the science community.
In the open letter, Curry stated: 'The situation is rendered more serious because Mr Musk now occupies a position within a Trump administration in the USA that has over the past several weeks engaged in an assault on scientific research in the US that has fallen foul of federal courts'.
Confirming the scheduling of an emergency meeting, a Royal Society spokesperson told Fortune that a debate will take place on March 3 over 'principles around public pronouncements and behaviours of Fellows'.
This open letter is not the first voicing of unease with Musk's Royal Society Fellowship.
Last November, Professor Dorothy Bishop, a University of Oxford psychologist, resigned from the scientific institution.
Protesting Musk's behaviour and involvement in the 2024 US Presidential election, Prof. Bishop said she refused to be associated with a group that calls Musk a member.
At the time, Prof. Bishop remarked that Musk was modelling himself on a 'Bond villain'.
'I just feel far more comfortable to be dissociated from an institution that continues to honour this disreputable man,' she added.
Her resignation was followed by that of Andrew Miller, a University of Edinburgh biologist, last week.
Miller cited the society's 'inability to take proportionate action on Elon Musk’s current promotion of disinformation and attacks on evidence-based policies and science advice' as cause for his resignation.
The Royal Society has previously boasted esteemed Fellows such as Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charlers Darwin, with current celebrated members including Sir David Attenborough and Sir James Dyson.
Founded back in 1660, the Royal Society is the UK's oldest scientific academy.
The Royal Society has so far refrained from naming Musk as the Fellow whose membership they are meeting to discuss, instead stating that 'any issues raised in respect of individual Fellows are dealt with in strict confidence'.
If the scientific body were to follow through on other member's demands, Musk's removal could result in significant damage for the centuries-old society.
Any decision made is likely to be viewed as a political one, with the institution at risk of becoming embroiled in a public culture war, the likes of which have already subsumed many of Musk's recent critics.
One Fellow at the Royal Society spoke anonymously to The Times and expressed his support for Musk to hold on to his Fellowship despite his 'reprehensible behaviour'.
'I don’t like what Musk is doing — it’s reprehensible. But I also think he’s an astounding person in terms of what he has contributed to engineering.
'The society would be hypocritical if it singled out and censured one person for things they have said and done. You open the doors to charges of hypocrisy if you go down this road', they argued.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14408595/scientists-royal-society-meeting-elon-musk.html
Solar Orbiter ready for close encounter with Venus
18/02/2025
The European Space Agency (ESA) is ready to guide the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft through its closest encounter with Venus so far.
Today’s flyby will be the first to significantly ‘tilt’ the spacecraft’s orbit and allow it to see the Sun’s polar regions, which cannot be seen from Earth.
Studying the Sun’s poles will improve our understanding of solar activity, space weather, and the Sun-Earth connection.
Closer to Venus than ever before
Since launch in 2020, Solar Orbiter has carried out a number of gravity assists at Earth and Venus to gradually shrink its orbit and bring it closer to the Sun, but never before has it come as close to a planet as it will today, 18 February 2025.
At 21:48 CET, the spacecraft will pass within just 379 km of Venus. For comparison, astronauts aboard the International Space Station orbit Earth at an average altitude of 408 km.
“Getting so close to the planet allows us to use its gravity to significantly change the spacecraft’s orbit without using much fuel,” says ESA Flight Dynamics expert Julia Schwartz.
“The planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun in the same roughly flat plane. Today’s encounter with Venus will use the planet’s gravity to significantly ‘tilt’ Solar Orbiter’s orbit with respect to that plane.
This will grant Solar Orbiter a much better view of the Sun’s polar regions, which cannot be seen from within the plane.”
Future Venus flybys, such as the one in December 2026, will further tilt the spacecraft’s orbit and enable high-resolution imaging of the Sun’s entire polar regions.
From its unique orbit, the mission will help us refine our understanding of solar activity and improve our ability to safeguard technology on Earth from powerful solar outbursts and erratic space weather.
Cool under pressure
Passing so close to Venus presents a number of challenges for the team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Germany.
Precise calculations and minor course corrections are necessary before and after the flyby to keep the spacecraft on track.
“The flyby has been carefully planned to get close enough to Venus to get the most out of the encounter while keeping the spacecraft safely above the planet’s atmosphere to avoid it experiencing drag,” says Sam Bammens from the Solar Orbiter Flight Control Team.
However, Solar Orbiter will still be bathed in the thermal radiation emitted by the planet as it passes.
“We expect Solar Orbiter to heat up significantly during the flyby. To prepare for this, the team carried out a detailed simulation of the heating effect of the Venus gravity assist manoeuvre.
Several parts of the spacecraft will experience a significant temperature increase, but all components will stay well within their design limits.”
“For a few of us in the control team, it is our first flyby. During the planning, we learned a lot about what it takes to navigate the Solar System, and we are very excited for tonight.”
Cloudy with a chance for science
During the manoeuvre, Solar Orbiter will continue to point its ‘front’ – its instruments and, more importantly, its heat shield – towards the Sun to keep the spacecraft safe.
That means it won’t be able to point any of its cameras towards Venus and its cloud tops during the flyby, but it is still an opportunity to gather some scientific data.
Unlike Earth, Venus lacks a global magnetic field to interact with the charged particles of the solar wind. However, a layer of its atmosphere known as the ionosphere interacts with the solar wind in unique ways.
Solar Orbiter’s Magnetometer and Radio and Plasma Waves sensors will be switched on as the spacecraft passes Venus to record the planet’s magnetic and plasma environment.
The data they collect will contribute to ongoing research on how the solar wind affects planetary atmospheres beyond Earth.
ESA at Venus
Solar Orbiter is not the only ESA mission visiting Venus this year. ESA’s Juice spacecraft, en route to Jupiter to explore its icy moons, will also fly past the planet in August.
Solar Orbiter and Juice will pass Venus just 194 days apart – that’s less than one day on Venus, which lasts 243 Earth days. The frequent visits highlight the planet’s important role as a waypoint for ESA's interplanetary voyagers.
However, while Solar Orbiter and Juice are making just brief visits to Earth’s neighbour, for some ESA missions, Venus is the final destination.
From arrival in 2006 until the end of the mission in 2014, ESA’s Venus Express studied the planet’s atmosphere and clouds in detail and mapped its surface temperature.
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Solar_Orbiter_ready_for_close_encounter_with_Venus
>Semper Venator
Earth from space: A mysterious 'black hole' in Pacific Ocean that sparked wild rumors online
February 18, 2025
This striking satellite image, taken from Google Maps in 2021, shows a bizarre, jet-black, triangular structure in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
At the time, the mysterious object, which was widely referred to as a "black hole," sparked wild rumors online. However, it was quickly revealed to be an uninhabited island covered with dense trees.
The screenshot was initially shared on Reddit and, despite being labeled as an island in the caption, accumulated a variety of speculative comments that were published by tabloid media sites at the time.
These unusual ideas included a deep pit under the planet and a top-secret military base that had been blurred out.
However, it was quickly confirmed that the dark patch was actually Vostok Island, one of the 33 landmasses that make up the Republic of Kiribati in the South Pacific, the BBC reported at the time.
The island, which is a coral atoll, has an area of just 0.1 square mile (0.25 square kilometer) and is located around 4,000 miles (6,000 km) east of Australia.
The virtually black color in the Google Maps image is the result of the island's densely populated Pisonia trees, which almost completely fill the island's interior.
These trees are dark green, but in such a high concentration, they look much darker from low Earth orbit, according to the BBC.
Pisonia trees are known to grow so closely to one another that they often prevent any other tree or plant species from taking root in between them because they block out so much light, according to the academic news site JSTOR Daily.
The dense foliage also lures a variety of seabirds, including boobies, noddies and frigatebirds, according to a 1971 survey.
These birds get covered in sticky seed pods and thus help disperse them to other islands.
In other parts of the world, some birds have been known to get so stuck with the Pisonia pods that they become entrapped and die, JSTOR Daily reported.
As a result, there are sometimes piles of bones beneath the trees.
Before being discovered by Russian explorers in 1820, Vostok Island had shown no sign of ever being inhabited by humans, according to a 1966 article in Pacific Islands Monthly, and it has not had any permanent residents since.
This is likely because there is no reliable source of fresh water on the island.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/earth-from-space-a-mysterious-black-hole-in-pacific-ocean-that-sparked-wild-rumors-online
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-331794890/view?sectionId=nla.obj-338884887&partId=nla.obj-331897145#page/n88/mode/1up
3D nanoprinting technique can transform ceramics for high-performance systems, from disease detection to space travel
February 17, 2025
The same material from which you drink your morning coffee could transform the way scientists detect disease, purify water, and insulate space shuttles thanks to an entirely new approach to ceramic manufacturing.
Published in Advanced Science, 3D-AJP is an aerosol jet 3D nanoprinting technique that allows for the fabrication of highly complex ceramic structures that—at just 10 micrometers (a fraction of the width of human hair)—are barely visible to the naked eye.
These 3D structures are made up of microscale features including pillars, spirals, and lattices that allow for controlled porosity, ultimately enabling advances in ceramic applications.
"It would be impossible to machine ceramic structures as small and as precise as these using traditional manufacturing methods," explained Rahul Panat, professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and the lead author of the study. "They would shatter."
Ceramics are believed to be the key to emerging engineering systems because of their wear resistance, thermal stability, thermal insulation, high stiffness and biocompatibility.
While existing 3D printing techniques have opened doors for ceramics fabrication, oftentimes severe shrinkage and/or defects are observed during post-printing processing due to the removal of additives from the ink that were needed to support the material during printing.
With shrinkage ranging from 15–43%, it is challenging for fabricators to set printing parameters that would output the ideal part.
3D-AJP does not rely on additives in the ink and therefore sees only a 2–6% shrinkage rate, so manufacturers can feel confident that the structure they want is the structure they'll print.
To ensure this, the research team performed a detailed manufacturability study to identify the CAD programs needed to produce the final shape.
Additionally, the team, including postdoc Dr. Chunshan Hu, demonstrated 3D-AJP's unique ability to print two ceramic materials in one single structure, which allows for advanced applications.
"Using these structures, we can detect breast cancer markers, sepsis and other biomolecules from a blood sample in just 20 seconds," said Panat.
This application, which is an extension of past research in which Panat's group developed a metal biosensor to detect COVID-19 in just ten seconds, is advantageous, because compared to metal, ceramic sensors can be manufactured nearly five times faster.
Panat also cites the benefits of this technology in water purification and thermal insulation.
"In the presence of UV light and zinc oxide, chemicals can be degraded, so by creating a 3D structure with a higher surface area we can increase the speed and the effectiveness of water purification by four times," he said.
"Additionally, our ability to control the porosity of these structures, allows us to control and tailor thermal conductivity of structures such as the insulators used in space shuttles."
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-3d-nanoprinting-technique-ceramics-high.html
https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202405334
Comb the desert, Lizzo
3D-printed 'hydrogels' could be future space radiation shields for astronaut trips to Mars
February 18, 2025
Spend a single day outside our planet's protective atmosphere and magnetic field, and you could be exposed to radiation levels equivalent to what you'd experience across a whole year back on Earth.
It's a risk astronauts face, and especially so during long trips. As such, finding methods to combat radiation exposure in space has long been on the minds of researchers working on technology for space travel.
New research suggests a novel solution: a material called "hydrogel" — the same technology used for the 'grow monster' toys — could shield space travelers from harmful radiation.
"The superabsorbent polymer that we are using can be processed using multiple different techniques, which is a rare and advantageous quality amongst polymers," Manon Minsart, a postdoctoral assistant at Ghent Universaid, said in a statement.
"Our method of choice is 3D printing, which allows us to create a hydrogel in almost any shape we want."
Hydrogels of course are already used in a range of consumer products. "The beauty of this project is that we are working with a well-known technology," Ghent researcher Lenny Van Daele said, in the same statement. "Hydrogels are found in many things we use every day, from contact lenses to diapers and sanitary products."
Daele says the research group drew on their previous experience with medical hydrogel applications, like using them for "soft implantable material to repair damaged tissues and organs."
While water can create a good shield for radiation, according to the researchers, SAPs could be even safer and more effective.
Rather than using free-flowing water as radiation protection, hydrogel soaks up the water, creating equal distribution and protection — and if the protective layer is punctured, the water won't leak out, which is important when working around sensitive electronics.
In addition to protecting astronauts, the European Space Agency (ESA) foresees further uses for hydrogel in space.
"The material could also potentially be applied to uncrewed missions — in radiation shields for spacecraft, or as water reservoirs once we have optimised the method of retrieving water from the hydrogel," added Malgorzata Holynska of ESA's Materials, Environments and Contamination Control Section, in the statement.
This new study builds on previous work where hydrogel was tested to make sure that it was safe to use in space conditions.
"There is a constant search for lightweight radiation protection materials," project lead Peter Dubruel said, in the statement.
"We are applying different techniques to shape the material into a 3D structure and scale up the production process, so that we can come a step closer to industrialisation."
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/3d-printed-hydrogels-could-be-future-space-radiation-shields-for-astronaut-trips-to-mars
Scientists accidentally discover Earth's inner core is less solid than expected
February 17, 2025
For a long time, scientists thought the Earth's inner core was a solid ball of metal, sort of like a planet within a planet that sits some 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers) below the surface.
However, researchers from the University of Southern Carolina (USC) now say they discovered — almost by accident — that the Earth's inner core may be much more malleable.
John Vidale, Dean's Professor of Earth Sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, who was the new study's principal investigator, said in a statement that the researchers "didn't set out to define the physical nature of the inner core."
Originally, the USC scientists were tracking how our planet's inner core speed of rotation is decreasing, because previous research found that the core is slowing down.
The method for charting this involves studying seismic waveform data from earthquakes.
The team used the data from 121 repeating earthquakes between 1991 and 2024; the chosen events happened across 42 different locations near the uninhabited South Sandwich Islands that are situated north of Antarctica.
The USC scientists were studying the waveforms when they came upon some surprising data that contradicted our previous understanding of Earth's inner core.
A dataset of waveforms held some uncharacteristic properties the team wasn't expecting to see.
"As I was analyzing multiple decades' worth of seismograms, one dataset of seismic waves curiously stood out from the rest," Vidale said.
"Later on, I’d realize I was staring at evidence the inner core is not solid."
Once Vidale's team improved the resolution technique, they found the seismic waveforms "represented additional physical activity of the inner core."
So, the data led them to believe that the inner core might be moving around a bit, rather than staying completely solid.
"What we ended up discovering is evidence that the near surface of Earth's inner core undergoes structural change," Vidale said.
According to the researchers, the structural change may relate to the inner core's slowing and could lead to a better understanding of the Earth's thermal and magnetic fields.
What's more, the change might have "minutely altered the length of a day."
https://www.space.com/the-universe/earth/scientists-accidentally-discover-earths-inner-core-is-less-solid-than-expected
https://today.usc.edu/earths-inner-core-is-less-solid-than-previously-thought/